Tag Archive: Blaze

The fourth Stephen King book I read was actually written by King’s pseudonym Richard Bachman. The book is called Blaze, and this is what the blurb says:

Clayton Blaisdell’s capers are strictly small time until he meets George Rackley. With Blaze’s brawn and George’s brains, they pull off a hundred successful cons. Then George plans the one big score every small timer dreams of: kidnapping the heir to a family fortune.

The trouble is that by the time the deal goes down, the brains of the operation has died. Or has he?

Now Blaze is running into the white hell of the Maine woods with a baby as hostage. The crime of the century just turned into a race against time…

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the main character, Blaze, was very loveable, despite kidnapping a 6 month old baby, and I liked how you could see how his mind worked through the narrative. To be honest I was more interested in the flashbacks to see how Blaze ended up where he is today, but I wanted to see how his story played out, so it only took me a few days to read. I’m not sure if it is just because it was mentioned in the ‘Full Disclosure’ at the beginning of my copy of the book, but this story reminded me a lot of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The main character is abnormally big and strong, and because of mental problems, can’t control their strength or know right from wrong and get into trouble because of it. I don’t think it helps that the ‘smart one’ of the team is called George in both books either XD. Although this isn’t a horror, there is a slight supernatural element that presents itself in the form of Blaze hearing advice from a dead friend. Is it just his imagination? Who knows. I liked it though.

As I am running out of things to say (in case you hadn’t noticed, writing isn’t my strong point…) I am going to end my review there. I don’t know which one I’m going to read next. I have a lot of books on my list.